I was trying to clean up my garage and found some latex paint test samples. Since the chemicals collecting stations had been shut down due to the Covid situation, I thought I would find some way to use them up. I wonder if I could paint with them.
Found my old Ram painting at hand and that was as good a guinea pig as any, for my latex paint experiment.
I started out with the ram on the bottom. The first thing I noticed was the ability for the paint to hide everything.
The second thing I found out was how thick the paint was, and it rendered my soft hair brushes totally limp, with no ability to rebound. Now I understand why the paint stores sell stiff nylon bristle paint brushes. I was just glad that I didn't use my "nice" brushes for my experiment and I was also quick to clean my brushes out the moment I was done with one section.
I really wasn't planning on documenting the whole process so I didn't take pictures along the way. I only had the finished experiment to show here:
I also painted a couple canvas in red and wanted to dry mount a couple of my zodiac animals on them.
I did the Ox painting first and quickly learned that the paper I painted on was too thin and allowed the red from the canvas to shine through. That was a bummer.
For my Pig, Zhu Bajie, I painted the area where the painting was going to be mounted a cream color, with the same latex paint sample that I painted the rams. My theory was that if any color was going to filter through the thin paper, it wouldn't be red.
My theory worked, and I received an education on how important the backing is for paintings done on Xuan paper.
It was a fun way to re-purpose some old latex paint, canvas and old paintings.
